[ocdtrekkie]

> Hacker News is made possible by Section 230

This is false. Basically everyone that's argued this has been funded by tech companies. The reality is Section 230 is at best, an inconvenience for good actors, while being an incredible gift to bad actors. It lets a good actor avoid a possible lawsuit. (And law requires intent, Section 230 does not meaningfully protect someone who didn't intend to enable bad actors.) It guarantees a bad actor can profit off crime with impunity.

And I think the financial incentives in participating the Internet absolutely make it worth the risk for a well-run business, including one with UGC, to make reasonable risk decisions about their liability. (HN, selling no ads, nor hosting image or video files, probably has extremely minimal risk.) The marketing about the importance of 230 is crucially about protecting tech companies' immunity and ultimately, their bottom line, but it doesn't mean everything stops existing overnight.

But again, my position remains consistent: If it can't survive without Section 230, it shouldn't.

[adinisom]

In Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, Prodigy ran a message board and would have escaped liability for defamation by a third-party save one problem: they exercised editorial control by moderating content.

Hacker News faces the same risk.

Respectfully I prefer a world where Hacker News exists.

[ocdtrekkie]

I'm well aware of the canon of using a single mishandled case from 1995 to justify allowing endless abuse of every part of society by tech companies.

If HN is worth all of the murdered immigrants to you, that's your value system to live with. shrug